Tuesday, October 12, 2010

{TWD} Pear Foldover Torte, regular and gluten-free

A 6 inch mini torte with flaky pie crust

The Tuesdays With Doriebaking group continued on an autumn baking spree this week with Dorie Greenspan's Fold-Over Pear Torte, a sort of hybrid pie/pudding concoction, baked in a springform pan and packed with fruit - pears this time - and nuts.

- Dorie's recipe calls for pears, walnuts, and chopped dried apricots. Although sometimes pears are a little bland in desserts, I decided to stick pretty closely to the original; my version switched out the apricots for dried cherries (plumped in boiling water first) because I'll use any pretext to bake with dried cherries.

- I made two 6 inch tortes. In addition to the regular pie-crust-encrusted torte, I also made a gluten-free version, with a base layer of nut tart crust (similar to the one that I made here) and then lots of fruit and custard. For the gluten-free torte I replaced the all purpose flour in the custard with a mixture of coconut flour and almond flour.

the gluten-free torte with a nut crust base (and no fold over)

- I forgot to add the baking powder to the custard, but luckily the tortes seemed none the worse for the omission. They still puffed a bit - from the eggs I guess.

- We love custard at our house, so I made extra filling to be certain that there was enough custard in each of the tortes. I was able to use all of the gluten-free filling in my very tall 6" springform pan. For the regular tart, the pan was much shallower and I couldn't fit all of the filling into the crust, so I baked the extra fruit and custard in some buttered baking dishes.

- Instead of Dorie's crust, for the regular torte I used the Cook's Illustrated pie crust (find the recipe here, and my previous post about it here) which is my very favorite crust for two reasons: it is impossibly easy to work with the dough, and I love the taste from the combination of shortening and butter. The pie crust complements any pie filling without stealing the starring role.

- The crust didn't brown very much as it baked in the oven so next time I might brush it with a milk or egg wash.

the leftover fruit and custard, baked in a buttered dish

the verdict:

My husband ate the regular torte and absolutely loved it. "This might be the best dessert. Ever." He savored his little torte over the course of a few days, accompanied by rum ice cream.

My daughter J.D.E. and I sampled the gluten-free torte. It had a luxurious amount of custard, and the nut crust played a nice supporting role. My daugher liked the dessert so much that she said she'd like the baked custard + fruit even without the crust (although she preferred the nut crust to the regular pie crust).

Best dessert. Ever. - wow! I feel like that is especially high praise coming from someone lucky enough to be treated to fabulous desserts on a regular basis. We liked this one as well (although David is kind of in a rut when it comes to giving me interesting feedback about these desserts - he needs to work on that.) I'm with J.D.E. re: the scrumptiousness of the custard and fruit! Both of your versions sound divine (and look beautiful as always!)